what i dont understand is if you knew about the rust in the back of the fenders and teh window frames and all other places, why did you put it together? why didnt you fix it before you put it back together?

i must say it is a pleasure to see you are doing everything again just to make sure it is done properly this time!

Thanks everyone for the comments! I love heading in to this shop every weekend (even if I am exhausted all the time, haha), they're all very helpful and extremely nice! (On a side note, they've got one of the largest collection of Nissan and Toyota parts I've ever seen, so if anyone one needs rare JDM Nissan/Toyota bits (they've got parts for other makers as well, but they're collection isn't as big mostly due to the fact that other makers are just that rare around here), these are the guys!)

Eric, I didn't know that the paint didn't match when I first got the car back. I just paid 4 grand for bodywork and paint so I figured that for that price they did it right (even if they were slow at it). It wasn't until the car was almost completed that I started to realize just how bad it was. Even then I was going to leave it, but after it was together I was just so disappointed in myself that I didn't do it right, I decided to hook up with the right people and make sure personally that it got done the correct way!

Alright, so I totally got back out there this weekend and took a metric ton of pictures!

Firs things first, when I showed up on Saturday, the corners with new steal were looking much closer to finished!

And the other bits had had their holes filled in with fiber putty, then sanded sooth and painted with primer.

This part of the door was pure rust and now look at it!

Front fenders look spectacular as well!

So then I got my sanding on trying to smooth out the filler as much as possible. She's almost there!

Then it was time to get my sanding on on the primered stuff.

But that quickly got shut down in an effort to do a quick masking job so the car could be covered in primer.

But 6 o clock rolled around and that was as far as we got on Saturday. On Sunday the Shacho had the day off, so instead of messing with the body of the car I went back to sanding primered stuff!

After all that was finished up, I asked around about what I should do about the half primered car and it was suggested that I wet sand the primered bits to go ahead and get it out of the way. So the wet sanding begins!

And my tools, yup, that water is heated (thank god cause it was undeniably cold here today)!

But then, I got sidetracked once more, haha! More on this in the next post (since this is where my metric ton of pictures comes in)!

Alright, so I got sidetracked with the hood. We've been largely ignoring it because we knew it was bad. We did entertain the idea of searching for a new one (or one in better shape than this one), but that lasted about one day, haha.

So I busted out the shop grinder and got to work on removing the almost 1/4 inch think bondo!

You can see that the old shop did weld in new steel, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I asked them to. All they did was hammer the old steel down and weld in some patches. Then they caked on bondo as if they were sugar crazed kids putting icing on a cake!

Then Sugiura san decided to work his magic. Only this time, I was there and got to see it first hand. So I said to myself "To hell with wet sanding, I want to see how this is done!" So, I present you my short picture diary of how to make new steel do whatever you ask it to do!

He starts by making measurements and writing them down on the closest piece of trash he can get his hands on.

Then he pulls out this huge piece of steel and makes marks corresponding to the measurements.

And then this hugely massive machine makes quick work of perfectly cutting the steel.

Hard to imagine what this simple piece of steel will become.

After some solid hammering...

... and a trip to the metal brake we have a basic shape starting to form!

Work on removing the old steel without destroying the frame underneath begins.

Then, a short mock up and decision making on where exactly to make the big cut.

Another trip to the metal brake...

... and now we're getting pretty close!

Old nasty bits cut off.

And then it was time for the big cut!

Removing old rusted out spot welds.

And the nasty metal is out!

Work on the metal frame underneath.

Old and busted, new hotness!

Here he mocks up with the fender making sure that the curves and bends all match up perfectly.

Then it's time to make a short step down in the remaining metal so the new metal has something to be spot welded to.

This tool made really quick work of something that would have taken me hours, haha.

More mocking up to make sure that everything is aligned perfectly.

And then he pulled out the biggest, meanest looking spot welder I've ever seen, haha.

Tacking it into place.

Spot welding the sides on.

Oh man that looks so good.

He's not quite done yet and the difference is already like night and day.

More replacement of bad, rusted out steel.

I know that it's digital and it can only be as bright as the color white on my screen, but I still can't bring myself to look directly at the weld, haha.

These parts had to be MIG welded on because the frame underneath prevented use of the spot welder.

And that's how it's done! Nothing like watching someone who's been doing this for longer than I've been alive get to work. A little bit of body filler and that will look better than new!

And that was when 6 o' clock rolled around today, more to come next weekend!

Thanks everyone for the comments! It was indeed amazing to watch him create that metal out of nothing.
Camshaft, the step down is indeed visible on the bottom, but we've covered it in fiber putty to seal it up. Next just need to sand it and paint it!

I only got to work on the car one day this weekend because Sunday was a massive company BBQ (which was awesome fun)! When I got to work I was happy to see that Sugi san had finished up my hood!

Looking good!

He also rebuilt some of the worse spots on the underside.

Unbelievable work!

It was time for me to get back to my wet sanding.

I still got a bit more to do on the roof, but it's starting to get really smooth!

I took a quick break to snap a picture of Shacho putting some fiber putty on the hood. This stuff is like a mix between boby filler and fiber glass. When it's dry you can sand it like body filler, but it seals up much better and keeps water from getting in.

Getting there!

Then the Shacho decided it was time to match paint, so I had to stop and watch him do this. It's like an art watching him do it by hand! He started off with a lot of white, some green, some black and some yellow.

It was crazy watching him just pour it in like that!

I thought it was pretty damn close already but he still said it had a long ways to go!

Add paint, mix, check color, add more paint, mix, repeat.

And then at the end he just put in a tiny dash of red. The color was completely spot on!

He wanted to paint the backs of all the doors, fenders and hatch, so we set them up in the paint booth and he got to work.

Now that's more like it!

The door jambs got a coat of paint as well!

Then the fenders got set on.

And that was it for Saturday. Sunday was the BBQ day and here's some of the metal that showed up!

These are both customer cars that the shop is just about finished with. Both customers came to enjoy the BBQ and check out their gorgeous rides!

That's all for now! Until next week!
Thanks again for all the support and comments!

The temp plates here work a bit different than in the states. It's a proper steel plate but you are only allowed to hold on to it for 7 days max, after that you have to return it. Since Shaken (the evil vehicle inspection) can only be done at specified places (I only know of 3 places that can do it here) the temporary tag's actual purpose is to give you 7 days to get to the Shaken center.

If you don't pass Shaken you still gotta return the plate, but you can just go to the city office and rent it again (it's 700 yen for the 7 days).

I'd love to sea translated Shake test list. As an ex MOT tester and quality controller from the UK I'd find it interesting to see what was involved in the Japanese MOT that has such an urban myth surrounding it.

Thank you guys so much for the comments!We had a long holiday here called Golden Week this past week, so my parents came to visit, as such I haven't really had time to make a new post. Having said that, this one is a bit of a doozy to make up for it, haha.

So I kept working at the shop up until the day my parents arrived (they arrived at 7 pm so I worked a half day at the shop). I mostly was just sanding and getting the car prepped for paint. Here, you can see I'm still going at it with water and paper.

It's starting to get pretty smooth!

Time to start in on the little pieces.

I also got to work on masking. This was interesting because I wanted to leave as much of the exterior open as possible while still creating a solid seal wih the tape. So the tape ran along the inner edge of where the weatherstripping sticks to.

Then we put the doors on so that when he paints it he can get a solid even color across the entire side of the vehicle. My girlfriend showed up for for our 3 o' clock break a little early so I put her to work holding the door while I bolted it on because it's definitely a two person job, haha.

Then it was relocated to the paint booth, where I did some final wet sanding.

Then some more wet sanding on the rear gate.

All the little bits sanded up and ready to rock.

The hood looks amazing!

As I was wet sanding it though, I noticed tons of little pin holes in the primer and a big crack in the body filler. I called the body guy over and asked him what to do. He pasted on this "green putty" to fill in the pin holes.

Which when sanded smooth, looks like this.

Then for the big crack...

... he handed me this.

Which made quick work of the crack!

And that was as far as I got before I had to leave to pick up my parents. We then ran around the southern half of Japan seeing Lake Biwa, stopping in Kyoto, then driving to Hiroshima and back around to Shikoku. Then all across Shikoku into Kobe and Osaka and finally back to Nagoya. Was a fun trip and mid way through the drive I got a mail from the shop saying something very special. Paint had been applied!

When I showed up to the shop they had just picked up this little thing though, it was too awesome not to take a picture of, haha.

And fresh paint, at last!

God it looks good!

And that's all for now, won't be able to get back to it to start bolting it together until next weekend, but it should be pretty exciting from here on out!Thanks again for all the comments and support guys!

The car looks incredible...wow! When I had read that you were at the shop every day, and then a half day when your parents arrived, I thought to myself "surely he doesn't have the girlfriend still..." And then she shows up and holds the door on! How do you do it?